ready and disposed to follow a banner, if there be the man to raise it … Then let not this occasion pass, in order that Italy, after so long a time, may see one who shall be her redeemer. Nor could I express with what love he would be received in all those provinces which have suffered from these foreign inundations; with what thirst for vengeance, with what steadfast faith, with what devotion, with what tears. What gates would be barred against him? What people would refuse him obedience? What envy would oppose him? What Italian would deny him homage? This barbarian domination is repugnant to all."
The figure of the redeemer of Italy again comes before us, in Machiavelli's later work, the Arte della Guerra,—and now the prophecy is more explicit. Machiavelli is showing, from the examples of the past and present, how a national army should be raised, equipped, and handled in the field. A prince, of a character totally different from that of those who held sway in the land before the disasters ushered in by the French invasion of 1494, is needed for the purpose:—
"I declare to you that, whichever of those who now hold states in Italy shall first enter upon this road, he will—before any other—become ruler of this country; and it will befall his state as befell the kingdom of the Macedonians, which, coming under Philip, who had learned the method of training armies from Epaminondas the Theban, became so powerful by this training and discipline, that, in a few years, Philip was able to occupy the whole of Greece." (1)
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